Fwd: Russian Film Symposium 2010: "From Art-House to Cine-Plex"

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Padunov, Vladimir <[email protected]>
Date: 2010/3/27
Subject: [Shera] Russian Film Symposium 2010: "From Art-House to Cine-Plex"
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>


 The twelfth annual Russian Film Symposium, "From Art-House to Cine-Plex:
Russian Cinema's Search for a Mass Audience," will be held on the campus of
the University of Pittsburgh from Sunday 2 May through Sunday 9 May 2010,
with evening screenings at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers' Melwood Screening
Room.

              The Russian film industry went into acute crisis in the
mid-1990s.  Annual film production dropped from 300 films a year (early
1990s) to fewer than 50 (1995).  Mosfilm Studio rented its stages to western
film companies but did not produce its own films.  Lenfilm was used as a
parking garage.  Gorky Studio declared bankruptcy.  Annual per capita
theatre visits dropped from 16 to 0.25.

 Many explanations have been offered to explain this crisis and collapse--the
absence of the profession of "producer"; the dilapidated infrastructure; the
rise of home-viewing technologies (video, DVD); the use of film production
for outright "money laundering."

              For over a decade the Russian film industry survived by
catering to two specific venues--international film festivals (in the hope of
selling foreign-screening rights) and art-house repertoire theaters (in the
hope of generating minimal domestic revenues).  In so doing, it virtually
ignored the Russian mass market.  During this decade, however, several new
film production studios were established, genuine producers arrived to take
over film financing, massive investment was made in building new cine-plexes
equipped with the latest sound and projection technologies.  Together with
Russia's oil-driven boom economy and the gradual emergence of a
middle-class, attendance at domestic screening venues began to increase
sharply.  Missing from screens, however, were domestically produced "movies
for the masses."

               In 2004, however, the Russian film industry finally began to
turn its attention back to the broad domestic market and began to release
films for a mass audience.  Initially touted as "blockbusters," these were
the first films made in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union that
(1) were produced without substantial state funding from the Federal Agency
for Culture and Cinema (disbanded in 2008) and (2) actually recouped
producers' financial investments.  By 2007, with progressively larger
production budgets (which enabled the transition to digital graphic imaging
technologies and an increase in the use of special effects) and the
greater shift
to making genre-driven films (romantic comedies, melodramas, costume dramas,
war films, etc.), these "blockbusters" consistently attracted larger
audiences than even Hollywood films that premiered in Russia at the same
time.  This shift forced Hollywood to change its marketing practices:
Hollywood-produced films now frequently receive their premiere screenings in
Russia prior to their release in the US.  And by 2008, Russia became
Europe's fourth biggest market in terms of admissions (123.9 million
viewers, a 16% increase over 2007), generated $830 million in box-office
revenues (a 47% increase over 2007), and opened 1,864 screens in 736
newly-built or totally refurbished theaters.

            Films included in this year's Symposium include Petr Buslov,
Aleksei German Jr., Boris Khlebnikov, Kirill Serebrennikov, and Ivan
Vyrypaev* *almanac film *Crush: 5 Love Stories *(2009); Vladimir
Bortko's *Taras
Bulba* (2009); Nikolai Dostal's *Pete on the Way to Heaven* (2009); Boris
Khlebnikov's *Help Gone Mad* (2009); Nikolai Khomeriki's *Tale in the
Darkness* (2009); Andrei Khrzanovskii's *Room and a Half* (2009); Kira
Muratova's *Melody for a Street Organ* (2009); Aleksandr Proshkin's *The
Miracle* (2009); Larisa Sadilova's *Sonny* (2009); Vasilii Sigarev's
*Wolfy*(2009); Valerii Todorovskii's
*Hipsters* (2009); and Ivan Vyrypaev's Oxygen (2009).





___________________________________________

Vladimir Padunov

Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Associate Director, Film Studies Program

University of Pittsburgh

427 Cathedral of Learning

Pittsburgh, PA 15260



Phone: 412-624-5713                      FAX: 412-624-9714



Russian Film Symposium      http://www.rusfilm.pitt.edu



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-- 
Dr. Tamara Machmut-Jhashi
Associate Provost
Associate Professor of Art History
Oakland University
248.370.2199

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